One of the biggest questions we receive on a regular basis is how we decided on who’s name to take after we got married. It’s an important topic for some. To other’s, not so much (looking at you, PJ!).

Sharing a last name, much like wearing a wedding ring, changing your relationship status on Facebook, or even taking the big step and getting married, is symbol of love. A symbol to show the world that you are a family, that you’re in it for the long haul. A name is just a name, but it can mean so much more when it’s shared.

Having the same last name was important to Thomas, and like we said above, not so much to PJ. For one, PJ already has four names, so adding a fifth by hyphenating our last names would be a mouth full. For two, PJ likes his last name and never planned on changing it, really. And for three, PJ is a realtor and is known professionally around town by his first and last name, so it was also a business decision to take PJ’s last name of McKay.

Thomas was never crazy about his last name anyway, so the decision to take on PJ’s instead of just hyphenating it was fairly easy for us. And, just to be clear, Thomas still kept his original last name and just made it a second middle name. So, now he has four names just like PJ 😉. Another important thing we considered was that when we have children, we want everyone to have the same last name so there would be no confusion. That was the biggest consideration we took when deciding to finally make the change.

We talk more about changing our last name and break down the steps on how to do that, legally, in our newest YouTube video. Keep in mind that the difficulty of changing your last name can vary depending on what state you live in, so the explanation in the video below is from our perspective living here in Tennessee.

Like we said, changing your last name after getting married is just a symbol, but it sure is a powerful symbol of love, don’t you think? It’s showing the world that two men can share a life together and raise a family just like any other couple. It’s showing folks that we want the same things everyone wants. And it’s a sign of love to one another that we are in this together.